


On the (Same) Page

by zinke



Series: Barnes & Noble [6]
Category: Castle
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-22
Updated: 2011-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 23:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinke/pseuds/zinke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Not your usual sort of lead character,” Kate comments softly. “No,” Rick says, giving her a significant look, “she isn’t.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the (Same) Page

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sixth and final story in the ‘Barnes & Noble' series, which all started because of the following AU ficathon prompt: _Johanna Beckett never dies_. At this point, it would be best for you to read the previous installments before diving into this one.
> 
> A small sliver of dialogue is respectfully borrowed from Gabrielle Stanton & Harry Werksman’s first season script, ‘Always Buy Retail’.
> 
> A big, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has read along over the past few months, and to hondagirll who provided the original prompt that started this whole crazy thing. I am also eternally grateful to my fabulous beta gabolange who has stuck with me despite the occasional writer’s pity party and inexcusable overuse of adverbs.

Engrossed as he is, Rick doesn’t realize he’s being watched until his mother is almost on top of him.

“You call this,” Martha exclaims, indicating the yards of page-filled clothesline crisscrossing the room, “a process? Why can’t you get a cork board like a normal person? Or use one of those supercharged gizmos you’re always fiddling with?”

Rick carefully clips page 47 back on the line. “Don’t dis the process,” he mumbles, eyes scanning the loose pages lying scattered across his desk.

Martha crosses her arms and leans against the doorjamb. “Does this process of yours involve eating regularly? Because it should.”

“What?”

Martha nods towards the clock. “You’ve been holed up in here since breakfast.”

Brow furrowed, Rick glances first at the clock, then at the darkened office windows. “What time is it?”

“Time to stop plotting some poor fictional character’s demise and take your dear mother to Landmarc for dinner.”

“This one isn’t about murder.” Off her look he amends, “Not _only_ about murder.”

“Whatever it is, it’ll keep for an hour or two.”

Rick shakes his head. “You and Alexis go ahead.”

“Richard, Richard,” she sighs, moving to sit at the edge of his desk, “it doesn’t take a three-hundred-dollar-an-hour Park Avenue psychiatrist to see what’s going on here.” Smiling sadly, she rests a hand on top of his. “She’ll come around.”

Rick smiles weakly and gives Martha’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “Go. Have a drink on me. No – wait. On second thought, don’t. But if you could convince Marc to send some of those delectable goat cheese profiteroles and a medium-well hangar steak home with you …”

Martha pats his hand and rises to her feet. ”I’ll see what I can do.”

Rick watches her leave, then returns to work. A few minutes later, he hears the low hum of female voices followed by the telltale snick of the front door closing.

Left alone with his manuscript, Rick carefully unclips page 52 and looks it over, but, try as he might, he can’t quite bring the words into focus. Sighing loudly, he flicks the paper onto his desk and closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as he leans back in the chair.

A chair he nearly falls out of a minute or so later when an unexpected voice calls his name. Steadying himself against the edge of the desk, Rick looks up to find Kate standing in the office doorway. “Kate! I—how did you—?”

“Martha let me in.” Even as he struggles to regain his equilibrium, Rick can see from her posture and the way she’s worrying her lip with her teeth that she’s nervous. Their eyes meet, and immediately Kate shifts her gaze away to take a pointed look around the room. “What is all this?” she asks, waving her hand to indicate the chaos of paper and string webbed throughout his office.

“My next book – at least it will be once I get all the kinks out.”

“Derrick Storm, miraculously back from the grave?”

Rick shakes his head. Rising to his feet, he slowly makes his way around the desk as if somehow moving too quickly might scare her off. “I’ll leave the wildly implausible character resurrections to Patterson. I’ve got someone new to write about: Kasia Steele.”

“A woman?”

Rick nods. “A talented, beautiful art historian who gets called in to assist the NYPD when, only hours before they’re due to go on the block, several high profile paintings go missing from the well-known auction house where she works.”

“Not your usual sort of lead character,” Kate comments softly.

“No,” he says, giving her a significant look, “she isn’t.”

Kate purses her lips and frowns slightly in response.

Rick mentally braces himself for the rejection he assumes is coming. He’s surprised when Kate reaches into her bag and pulls out a copy of _Storm Fall_. “You never signed my book,” she says, smoothing her hand across the cover.

Rick’s brow furrows as he struggles to make sense of the apparent non-sequitur. “I didn’t?”

Kate shakes her head and holds it out to him. “I thought maybe if you had a minute or two you could sign it now?”

“Uh…sure,” he says, still at a loss as to why this seems so important to her. He rummages through the piles of paper strewn across his desk until he finds a pen. Taking the book, Rick cracks open the cover and turns to the title page. “Who should I make it out to?”

The question is wholly automatic, borne from countless publicity tours and hundreds of book signings. But for some reason, it doesn’t seem to bother Kate at all. If anything, she looks almost grateful. Taking a step forward, Kate runs her fingers through her hair and gives him an uncertain smile. “Your girlfriend? That is, if you still—”

“I do!” he exclaims, dropping the pen and enveloping her in a fierce hug. “I do; believe me I do.”

Rick feels her squeeze him back as she laughs and buries her nose in the notch of his collarbone. “Better get writing, then.” Kate pulls back and casts a pointed glance at her book, lying forgotten on the desk behind him. “Just…don’t actually use the word girlfriend,” she adds wrinkling her nose in disdain.

Grinning, Castle takes a step closer and slips his arms more fully around her waist. “And what, pray tell, would you like me to call you instead? My paramour?” He leans in to kiss her cheek. “My lover?” he suggests, pressing his lips to hers. Pulling back, he gives her a mischievous grin. “My woman?”

Kate snorts and rolls her eyes. “How about just ‘Kate’?”

Rick gives her a measuring look, then reaches for the book. Memories of their chance encounter bring a faint smile to his lips as he uncaps his pen and turns to the title page. When he’s finished, Rick carefully hands the book back to her, watching nervously as she reads the inscription.

“To the extraordinary Kate Beckett,” she murmurs, her fingers tracing the arc and curve of his words on the page. “Yours, Rick.” Closing the book, Kate looks up and gives him a soft, easy smile. “Yes, you are.”

“You could never be ‘just’ anyone,” he says. “Not to me. You know that, right? I know; I know,” he hastens to add when he catches sight of Kate’s self-conscious expression, “It’s sappy and cliché. But it’s also the truth.”

“Actually,” Kate says, setting the book on the edge of the desk and slipping her arms around his waist, “what I was going to say is that you sound just like my mother.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Rick sniffs imperiously.

“You should; Mom usually hates the men I date.” Kate plucks at one of the buttons on his shirt. “She likes you, you know. You you, I mean. Not writer you. Well, not _just_ writer you and—.” Kate frowns at the smug grin on his lips. “Shut up.”

“Did I say anything?”

“You were saying nothing very loudly.”

“I can think of a few other things I could say to you without uttering a single syllable,” he murmurs, sliding a hand over the curve of her hip and up under the hem of her shirt.

Kate arches an eyebrow at him. “Speaking of cliché…”

“Kinda ruining the moment here,” he mutters before capturing her lips with his.

 

*fin.*


End file.
